Was Martinsville Ryan Preece’s Next-To-Last Playoff Shot?

That plan, however, unraveled thanks to a speeding penalty, and Preece showed that if it’s a short track, he is someone to contend with. That’s why the smart call for Stewart Haas Racing should be to put all its eggs in the basket of New Hampshire Motor Speedway this summer. That’s because New Hampshire is a short track in theory and is also very flat, fitting firmly into Preece’s strengths.

You don’t want to focus too much of a season on one track, but unless SHR can find an edge on intermediate tracks, New Hampshire may be going for broke territory for Preece.

2. Is Chase Elliott’s recovery ahead of schedule?

In his first race back from injury on Sunday, Chase Elliott fought his way to a top-10 finish, hardly an easy task on a physical track like Martinsville where passing was tough. When a driver is out for multiple weeks, rust can be expected, especially for 400 laps of beating and banging. You did not see that with Elliott, who minus being worn down after the race by heat along with a few others, persevering for a strong return.

Elliott would have been excused to run 20th or so in just logging laps and getting a rhythm back, but he did more than that. And with two tracks coming up, Talladega Superspeedway and Dover Motor Speedway, where he recently won, that could be bad news for the rest of the field.

3. Is there such a thing as Elliott overload?

NASCAR is hardly short on star power, and the sport uses drivers that attract interest, either by their performance, personality, or other factors, to help market the sport.

But is the promotion of the sport too star-heavy?

For the second race in a row, we have seen advertising reminding all of the interest that Elliott returns to Talladega this weekend. This is not too different from last week’s “Chase Elliott Returns” messaging for Martinsville, but there is a big difference between someone coming back one week and trying to emphasize the same info a week later.